First impressions and second chances

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

Eden Powell remembered Farrington Manor as the sanctuary she found after a pregnancy by rape brought her to tiny Arundel, North Carolina. Decades later, Eden unexpectedly inherits the estate from the woman who once took her in, and welcomes the respite from her hectic life as a book editor in New York, especially now that her pregnant daughter and son-in-law have moved into her apartment. Once she arrives in Arundel, Eden is caught between two men in Jude Deveraux's suspenseful mix of danger and family secrets, First Impressions. A scion of one of the town's oldest families, Braddon Granville wants Eden to be his partner, both romantically and professionally, as he makes plans for Queen Anne, an exclusive development inspired by 18th-century design. Eden's own love of the gardens of that period makes her vulnerable to Brad's polished Southern pedigree and the genteel life he offers. On the other hand, Jared McBride comes to Arundel with deeper secrets, yet Eden is also drawn to him. This bucolic Southern getaway simmers with the exposure of long-existing class snobbery and the lust for hidden wealth. Deveraux nurtures an intricate, multilayered garden of treasured blossoms amid the unwanted weeds of life.


Bayou intrigue

In the gumbo of backcountry Louisiana, Jilly Gable stirs up the heat with Guy Gautreux, a N'Awlins cop on leave who hasn't left the mean streets of the French Quarter as far behind as he thought, in Stella Cameron's A Grave Mistake. Abandoned as a child, Jilly now owns the pastry shop All Tarted Up. The successful Cajun businesswoman has been dancing around a relationship with Guy since he came to tiny Toussaint, but he won't commit. When the wealthy Edith Preston arrives claiming to be Jilly's mother, Guy wonders if Jilly's new family can be trusted, and his cop instincts compete with his desires for her. Jilly's siblings, Laura and Wes, seem to welcome her and Edith as part of the Preston family, but their own games and passions run dark. Dark enough for murder? Cameron whips up a spicy roux that will keep readers enthralled.


Dark and stormy nights

On the misty dark streets of 1880s Whitechapel, Darcie Finch is driven by desperation to Mrs. Feather's House, the notorious brothel run by her older sister, Abigail. There, Darcie finds the miracle of an opportunity for a better life. Instead of becoming a working girl, she is taken in by Dr. Damien Cole as a maid-of-all-work in debut novelist Eve Silver's beguiling Gothic tale, Dark Desires. Fascinated by the handsome doctor and his work, Darcie becomes his medical sketch artist, accompanying him as he treats patients. But the dark realities of Whitechapel—mysterious murders, body parts stolen—surround her new life. Evidence seems to point to the melancholy doctor, forcing Darcie to choose between her instincts and growing love for Damien and the suspicions that swirl around them. Silver has created a solid gold Gothic.


Final edit

Book editor Nina Madden combines business with family matters on a trip to Stone River on Maryland's eastern shore. The funeral of her stepmother, Olivia, turns up new information about Nina's father's conviction as a serial rapist-murderer in Mariah Stewart's Dark Truth. Meanwhile, true-crime writer Regan Landry is set to follow her father's superstar writing career. As Nina and Regan plot the launch of Regan's breakout book, Nina faces down the old scandal and challenges police detective Wes Powell to re-examine her father's case. Nina's determination to find out the truth about her father's past opens her to danger from someone who wants to keep the truth hidden. Wes came to her aid the day Nina's father was arrested years before, and now she needs him as well as Regan to help her in the quest for truth. As Nina and Wes seek to lay old ghosts to rest, attraction grows between them despite their best intentions. The truths revealed may be dark, but Stewart's story sizzles with light and sagacity.


Sandy Huseby writes from Fargo, North Dakota, and lakeside in Minnesota.

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